
LEARNING 

TO TEACH 

PROM THE 

MASTER 

TEACHER 



BY 

JOBNA.MARQUIS 



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Class BV l^^ 
Book J M3 . 



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GopyrightN c 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

FROM 

THE MASTER TEACHER 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

FEOM 

THE MASTER TEACHER 



BY 

JOHN A. MARQUIS, D.D., LL.D. 

PRESIDENT OP COE COLLEGE 




PHILADELPHIA 

THE WESTMINSTER PRESS 

1913 



V 



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A* 



COPYRIGHT, I913 
BY F. M. BRASELMANN 



A350760 

to, 



7 



FOREWORD 

Learning to Teach from the Master 
Teacher is a message for Sunday-school 
teachers written by a teacher. The chapters 
first appeared in the pages of The Westminster 
Teacher. They attracted such favorable atten- 
tion that they are now offered in this more per- 
manent form. 



CONTENTS 



THE MASTER'S CONCEPTION OF HIS CALLING 
AS A TEACHER 

Called Teacher Oftener than by any other Title — 
Teaching His Chief Business — Regarded Teaching 
as an Essential Part of His Redemptive Work — 
What His Scorn of Unworthy Teachers Showed 

— Made His Church Essentially a Teaching Body 

— Four Lessons for Teachers: 1. Put a High 
Value on Your Work as a Sunday-school Teacher 
2. Make Your Work as a Teacher an Impor- 
tant and Serious Part of Your Life — The Work 
of Christ in the World is Dependent on How 

You Teach — Regard Yourself as Called to Teach 3 

II 

THE MASTER'S OBJECTIVE IN TEACHING 

The Communication of Religious Knowledge — To 
Awaken and Direct Thought about Religion — 
To Induce Decision in behalf of Religion — The 
Cultivation of Character — The Culmination: 
Preparation for Service ...... 9 

III 

HOW THE MASTER GATHERED HIS CLASS 

Associated Himself with the Religious Forces of His 
Day — Spent a Day with the Two He Found 
after the Baptism — Taught His Class Some- 
thing Worth While — Wayside Invitations . 16 

r viii 



CONTENTS 

IV 
THE MASTER'S GRASP OF HIS SUBJECT 

Knowledge of His Subject — Experience of His Subject 

— Thought His Subject Out and Arranged it 

so as to Make it Clear to Others .... 21 

V 

THE MASTER'S METHOD OF TEACHING 

Lucid Statement — Thought-compelling Questions — 
Allowed and Provoked His Class to Ask Ques- 
tions — Made Frequent use of the Dilemma — 
A Master in the use of Pat Illustrations — 
The Principle of Review — Laboratory Teaching 27 

VI 

HOW THE MASTER FOLLOWED UP 
HIS TEACHING 

Association with His Disciples — Reinforced Teaching 

— Comradeship in Play — Comradeship in Work 34 

vn 

THE MASTER'S WAYSIDE TEACHING 

In the Master's View, No Wayside Incidents in Life, 
in the Sense that They are Trifling or Unimpor- 
tant — Qualifications for Wayside Teaching: 
Tact, Sympathetic Interest, Knowledge of His 
Bible, always Prepared — Sought Out by 
People — The Gift of Meeting Strangers — Use 
of Travel Opportunities — Vacation Teaching 40 

[ viii ] 



CONTENTS 

VIII 

THE MASTER'S SUCCESS AS A 
TEACHER 

Never Anxious about His Success — Superb Confidence 
— Throw a Flood of Light on the Old Testament 
— Wherever He Spoke Men began to Think as 
They Never had Thought Before — Success not 
to be Judged by Number of Disciples — What 
the Few Disciples Accomplished — Clothed 
Truth with the Right Atmosphere — Success 
Measured by Antagonism — Growth of Teach- 
ing in Clearness and Force as Time Passed . 47 

IX 

THE MASTER'S DISCOURAGEMENTS 
AS A TEACHER 

Not a Discourageable Man — Dull Minds — Closed 
Minds — Successful Opposition — Adverse Con- 
ditions — Waning Interest — These Discourage- 
ments Successfully Met because ; He was Sure 
of Himself, He took the Wider View of Faith, 
He Worked, He Prayed 62 



THE MASTER'S ENTHUSIASM AS A 
TEACHER 

Jesus an Enthusiast — Consumed with Passion for His 
Cause — Contagious — Not Affected by Difficul- 
ties . 



ix] 



CONTENTS 

XI 

THE MASTER'S PERSONALITY IN 

TEACHING 

Personality the Greatest Force in History — Jesus' 
Personality a Large Element in His Power — 
The Teacher's Need of Personality — How to 
Cultivate Personality: by Character, by In- 
terest in Others, by Confidence 66 

xn 

THE MASTER AS A MAKER OF 
TEACHERS 

Teachers from Unpromising Material — Made Teaching 
a Prominent Function of Discipleship — Made 
Teaching Attractive — Made Teaching the Chief 
Agency of Redemption — Attached Large Impor- 
tance to His Own Teaching Office — Gave His 
Disciples Teaching to Do 73 



[x 



LEARNING TO TEACH FROM 
THE MASTER TEACHER 



1] 



THE MASTER'S CONCEPTION OF HIS 
CALLING AS A TEACHER 

The office of teacher was an honorable one in 
Christ's day, and had been for centuries before. 
Up in Greece, where nourished the finest civiliza- 
tion the world knew, the most honored names in 
its history were those of its teachers: Socrates, 
Plato and Aristotle. The finer a people grow the 
more they appreciate their teachers. Many of 
the most illustrious leaders in Israel were teachers. 
The prophetic office was essentially a teaching 
office, and Solomon was as much teacher and 
preacher as king. He "taught the people knowl- 
edge," and was revered as much for his wisdom as 
for' his splendor. So Christ came into an atmos- 
phere of inherited respect for the calling of teacher, 
and he gladly availed himself of it. 

1. He was called "Teacher" oftener than by 
any other title. The word "Master" in our Old 
Version of the Bible means Teacher, and is gen- 
erally so translated in the Revised Version. His 
followers and friends were not called retainers 
or subjects or comrades, but "disciples," which 
means pupils. The relation he sustained to them 
[31 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

was recognized as first of all a teaching relation. 
When they came to him in public or private they 
said "Master," Teacher. When strangers came 
to him they generally addressed him by the same 
title. Nicodemus called him "Rabbi," which 
was a term of respect for teachers, and followed 
his salutation by saying, "We know that thou art 
a teacher come from God." He never resented, 
but on the contrary encouraged it. He wanted 
the people to understand that he was here to 
teach, and that was the thought of him that was 
deepest in the mind of his generation. 

2. Teaching was his chief business during the 
years of his ministry. He was often a healer, 
sometimes a worker of signs, frequently a preacher, 
but always a teacher. The relation between 
preaching and teaching is very close, and it is 
often hard to distinguish between them in our 
Lord's ministry. The preacher addresses a 
larger company of people than the teacher, and 
they in turn listen to him silently, without asking 
questions or taking part in the discussion. He 
deals with the great principles of truth, as a rule, 
without discussing the processes by which they 
have been developed, or the facts on which they 
are based; and his purpose is to inspire and incite 
to action rather than to instruct. The teacher, 
on the other hand, usually speaks to a small 
number of people, who ask questions and take 
part in the discussion. He deals with facts and 
[4] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

processes which the preacher leaves out or takes 
for granted, and his purpose is to imbed the truth 
in the mind rather than to inspire and arouse. 
Measured by this standard, there were not many 
occasions in our Lord's ministry when he played 
the part of a preacher. There are a few out- 
standing days, like that one in Galilee when he 
delivered the Sermon on the Mount, when he 
preached in a way that lifts and thrills us to this 
day when we read it. But generally he is among 
the people, talking to them, asking them questions 
and playing the part of the teacher. During the 
last year of his ministry he withdrew himself from 
the crowds, as a rule, that he might be with his 
disciples alone to teach them. 

3. The Master also regarded teaching as an 
essential part of his redemptive work. The cross 
would be meaningless were it not for the truth 
that preceded it. Calvary is not the whole of the 
gospel, but the culmination of it. Long before he 
suffered he began, it is stated, to teach that he 
must do it and explain why. It was hard enough 
for the disciples to understand his death as it 
was, and they never would have caught its mean- 
ing had it not been for the three years' teaching 
to which their minds kept going back all their 
lives. 

4. Christ's scorn of unworthy teachers showed 
his appreciation of the real teacher's mission and 
influence. He denounced the Pharisees with 

[5] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

unmeasured contempt because they were using 
the exalted office of teacher to mislead the people 
and enrich themselves. Like everybody else 
with a human heart, it made him indignant 
through and through to see a holy thing prosti- 
tuted to ignoble uses. The Roman officials in 
Palestine, and everywhere else, were degrading 
their civil offices by frightful oppression and cor- 
ruption, but Christ said little about it. He could 
not, however, see the office of teacher treated 
that way without hot protest. The worthier a 
thing is the louder our protest against its abuse. 

5. Christ made his Church essentially a teach- 
ing body. The apostles were sent to teach. One 
of the last things he said to them was that they 
were to teach all the world to observe the things 
he had commanded them. The Church, like its 
Lord, is to do a great many more things than 
teach, but it is never to forget this great feature 
of its life and work. Go through your New 
Testament, and you will be surprised to find 
how consistently and universally this teaching 
function of the Church is emphasized. 

Four Lessons for Teachers 

1. Put a high value on your work as a Sunday- 
school teacher. Your Lord regarded it as worthy 
of his best efforts, and it is worthy of yours. 
What he said in the quiet and seclusion of 
his circle of disciples is telling to-day with mighty 
[6] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

effect. What you do and say in the little com- 
pany of your class, and as you talk with them one 
by one in their homes, has an eternal value. It 
will reach farther down into history and exert 
a greater influence on what is worth while in life 
than anything you are doing in your business or 
in the social circle in which you move. Never 
allow yourself to think that it is a trifling thing 
that you are a teacher of the Bible. God never 
gave you a nobler task to perform. 

2. Make your work as a teacher an important 
and serious part of your life. Never push it into 
a corner or regard it as something to be done 
when you are through with everything else. 
Allow for it in your daily programme, and pre- 
pare for it as you prepare for everything else that 
is important and vital. One of the weaknesses of 
our Sunday-school system is that teaching is not 
taken seriously. Give it your best attention, and 
it will abound in fruit. 

3. The work of Christ in the world is depend- 
ent on how you teach. The people he died to 
save will not be reached without teaching. It is 
ours to go before him and tell men about him, as 
he went for three years before his cross that men 
might understand it when it came. Whether 
Christ gets into the souls of your class or not may 
depend on how you open the way for him. 

4. Regard yourself, if you are a Christian, as 
called to teach. Too few disciples of Christ feel 

[7] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

themselves under obligation to do it. When 
Christ called you to be his disciple he called you 
to teach in his name somehow and somewhere. 
Two things constitute a call to teach in Sunday 
school. (1.) The willingness to do it. You are 
master of that. If you are not willing to do it, 
you can bring yourself to it. A little serious 
thought and prayer will open your eyes and 
attune your heart. (2.) Ability to do it. If you 
do not have this now, you can acquire it. Teach- 
ing is an art, and not a difficult art to learn. 
The disciples were not teachers when our Lord 
found them, but in a few years the world was 
listening to them. They did it so splendidly that 
the Jew and the Roman could not afford to let 
them continue. 



[8 



II 



THE MASTER'S OBJECTIVE IN 
TEACHING 

The Master had an objective. This does not 
always appear at first sight. His addresses, 
parables and conversations cover a wide variety 
of subjects, and seem to be called forth by local 
surroundings and incidents. His utterances 
appear to be spontaneous rather than premedi- 
tated and mapped out. His conversation with 
Nicodemus, for example, touches some of the 
profoundest deeps of his gospel, and contains 
principles which enter into the heart and frame- 
work of his salvation. Yet it was called forth 
by what we may call the accident of a visit from 
a Jewish rabbi; no plan about it, and no objective 
in front of it save to answer the questions that 
were put to him. But this is not inconsistent with 
the fact that he had a clearly defined object in 
view in all he said and did. We must distinguish 
between the thread of his teaching and the occa- 
sion of it. The occasion was often fortuitous, 
but the end he was aiming at never was. It is 
[9] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

important to keep this in mind. The Master 
never spoke because he was called on to make a 
speech; much less did he teach because there 
was a class vacant and nobody else would take 
it, creditable as that motive might have been to 
him. He taught because he wanted to accom- 
plish certain clean-cut, definite things which he 
never allowed himself to lose sight of. 

1. The first was the communication of religious 
knowledge. This is fundamental in all teaching. 
No progress can be made in teaching any subject 
until the facts, the truth about it, are imparted 
to the pupils. All systems of education must 
begin here. So the thing our Lord first had in 
mind was to give the people information. The 
third chapter of John is crowded with truth and 
facts that were new to Nicodemus and the world. 
The parables are all informing; they added 
immensely to the world's stock of religious knowl- 
edge. The Sermon on the Mount is packed with 
information. The result of his conversation with 
the two disciples on the way to Emmaus the day 
of the resurrection was that he had got them 
to understand what was in the Scriptures con- 
cerning himself. This is one of the things that 
made the Master so effective as a teacher. The 
people left him feeling they had learned some- 
thing. 

The effective Bible teacher will take his cue 
from this. Every time he meets his class he will 
[10] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

add to their stock of religious knowledge, and put 
them in possession of Bible and Christian facts 
they did not possess before. Nothing can take 
the place of this. No amount of fervor, no fund 
of anecdote, no fluency of speech can be made a 
substitute for imparting knowledge. But knowl- 
edge cannot be imparted unless it is possessed. 
The first qualification of a teacher, therefore, is 
that he should be a student, and know thoroughly 
and masterfully the subject with which he is 
dealing. We cannot conceive of the Master's 
attempting to teach, or even express himself on 
a subject on which he was not informed. There 
were usually people around him who were anxious 
to catch him up, and able to do it, too, if oppor- 
tunity offered. The Pharisees were expert 
scholars, and a half -informed man could not have 
stood before them a minute. Christ put them to 
rout because he knew more than they did. It 
is not often that a Sunday-school teacher in these 
days is beset as Christ was; his hearers are usually 
sympathetic. But they are none the less acute 
and will detect ignorance as quickly as the men 
who watched the Master. Study every lesson 
until you know it, then go to the class determined 
to get that knowledge into the heads and hearts 
of your pupils. Like the Master, then, you will 
teach as one having authority. 

2. The second objective of the Master in 
teaching was to awaken thought about religion. 

mi 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

After he had taught the people knowledge he 
sought to make them think about it, assimilate 
it and make it their own. He constantly appealed 
to people to exercise their judgment about what 
he was saying. "What think ye?" He had a 
way of putting things that arrested attention 
and challenged mental activity. Frequently he 
refused to answer a question directly, but stated 
the principle involved so his hearers could see 
the answer for themselves. The parable of the 
Good Samaritan is an example of this. "Which 
of these three, thinkest thou, proved neighbor 
unto him that fell among the robbers?" The 
answer was far more conclusive because the 
lawyer who asked it had to make it himself. 

But the Master sought to direct thought as 
well as to awaken it. He never threw a question 
among his hearers without indicating the direc- 
tion in which the answer was to be found. He 
never left a discussion until he had turned it 
into eternal channels. 

The Bible teacher must learn from him here 
also. Teaching is only begun when knowledge 
is imparted. Contrive a way to get your class 
to think through the facts and principles involved 
in the lesson. And you will never get them to 
do it until you do it yourself. Stimulate them to 
come to the conclusions you want them to reach 
as the result of their own efforts. That great 
teacher, Thomas Arnold of Rugby, used to say, 
[121 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

"The effort a boy makes is a hundred times more 
valuable to him than the knowledge acquired as 
the result of the effort." This is especially true 
in the field of religious instruction. It is not the 
gospel we know, but the gospel we appropriate 
and assimilate, that saves us. When you teach 
so as to make your class discuss the lesson after 
they go home, you are accomplishing something. 

3. The third objective of the Master in teach- 
ing was to induce decision in behalf of religion. 
Frequently he closed his instruction with a direct 
appeal for acceptance or action, as in Matt. 
11:28-30. In that great passage, also, where he 
pictures the consequences of confessing or deny- 
ing him before men, it is easy to see the end he 
has in view. He imparts a startling piece of 
information in order to persuade men to put 
themselves right. 

The Bible teacher who sits at his feet will never 
fail to keep this in mind. Aim for decisions in 
your teaching. This does not mean that you 
are to call for them every time you face your 
class or talk with your pupils in private, but it 
does mean that you are never to lose sight of 
the fact that the end of your teaching is to per- 
suade those who listen to accept Christ. This is 
the objective of your campaign — the result you 
are marshaling your questions and discussions 
and conversations to achieve. The teaching that 
does not eventuate in this is a failure. 
[13] 



LEARNING TO T^ACH 

4. The cultivation of character was another 
objective in the Master's teaching. A surprising 
amount of his teaching is directed to this end. 
When we set down the qualities that enter into 
character, such as honesty, truthfulness, purity, 
justice, steadfastness, kindness, and so forth, we 
find him bringing one or more of them to the 
front every time he speaks. Religion amounts 
to nothing, he insisted, unless it results in 
character. "By their fruits ye shall know 
them." He criticized and denounced the Phari- 
sees because they made loud claims to religion, 
and yet were not good men. He urged his dis- 
ciples to be perfect as their Father in heaven 
is perfect. 

The teacher who walks in his steps must do 
this also. Your work is only begun when you have 
brought your pupil to a decision for Christ. The 
Christ character is to be built up in him, and he 
is to be made a man of righteousness and power 
in his world. Train your class to despise the things 
Christ despised, and to love and practice the things 
he loved and practiced. You cannot teach after 
the Master's pattern and wink at corruption and 
scandal. 

5. The whole course of training through which 
the Master led his disciples culminated in prepa- 
ration for service. They were taught and in- 
spired that they might go into all the world and 
serve and live and die for him. 

[14] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

No Sunday-school teacher can omit this and 
be true to his great Model. Out of our classes 
should come the ministers, missionaries, reformers, 
teachers and leaders who are to lift the world to 
the Christ-level. 



[15] 



Ill 



HOW THE MASTER GATHERED HIS 
CLASS 

1. He associated himself with the religious 
forces of his day. The deadness and worldliness 
of the synagague did not keep him away from its 
services. The Church of his fathers needed re- 
forming badly, and no one felt it more keenly 
than he. But he appreciated the fact that you 
cannot reform any institution by staying away 
from it. He was a regular attendant at the house 
of worship, and that helped him immensely in 
gathering his class of disciples. When John the 
Baptist began to hold outdoor services over on 
the banks of the Jordan, the Master was among 
the number of his listeners. There was no mis- 
taking the fact that he was vitally interested in 
the subject of religion. That was evident before 
he began to teach, and it laid the foundation of 
the people's confidence in him. He was not pro- 
posing to instruct others in a subject for which 
he had but little taste, and which was only an 
incidental feature of his own life and thought. 
Religion gripped his great soul, and he was 
[161 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

always to be found where religion was upper- 
most. This gathered to him disciples on every 
hand. The day he attended the preaching of 
John two men saw him there and followed him 
when he left. They were the nucleus of his class, 
and around them others at once began to gather. 

The Sunday-school teacher will find a valuable 
hint in this. He will never interest others in 
religion unless he shows that he is interested him- 
self. If you want to build up your class, or gather 
a new class about you, get into line with the work 
of your church. There will always be somebody 
at its services who wants to be taught. The best 
place to find out about starting a Sunday-school 
class is at Sunday school. You can count on 
some one's being there who can help you get a 
start. Be a sympathetic part of the religious life 
of your day. Go where the activities of religion 
are being carried on, and you will get both an 
influence and an opening. Get a start; one pupil 
will be enough. 

2. The Master spent a day with the two he 
found after his baptism. A day meant a good 
deal to him. He was as much crowded for time 
as any modern man of business could be. He had 
a tremendous piece of work before him, and only 
three years to perform it in. Yet he took that 
day to be alone with those two obscure seekers 
after the truth. The result proved it time well 
spent. For half a century one of those men was 
[17] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

a veritable tower of light in all Asia Minor. The 
other led the Christian forces in Jerusalem with 
such superb generalship that the city was all but 
captured when the brutal sword of Herod cut 
him down. To win two such men was worth 
any number of days out of even such a life as 
that of the Son of Man. Our Lord was never 
economical of his time when he was dealing with 
a soul. He spent an evening, probably far into 
the night, to talk with Nicodemus, who ought 
not to have needed the instruction. He sat on 
the curb of a well in Samaria in the hottest period 
of the day to teach a sinful woman something 
about the way of life. He allowed himself to be 
interrupted in the midst of his rest by people 
who needed to be taught. When the five thousand 
were fed he had just begun a much-needed vaca- 
tion in a quiet spot across Galilee. But instead 
of getting cross about it, as most of us would have 
done, we are told that his heart went out to them 
as sheep not having a shepherd, and he "taught 
them many things." He was always willing to 
take time with people, and to put the best of his 
strength into teaching them. 

The effective Sunday-school teacher will find 
a lesson here also. Your most fruitful moments 
with your class are those you spend with them 
one by one. It will pay you to give an evening 
to each of them, or. have them come singly, as 
well as in groups, to your house for fellowship 
[18] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

and conference. Don't be sparing of your time, 
especially with new pupils. You can never tell 
what will come of such a face-to-face talk. A 
James or a John may be brought into the service 
of the kingdom because you are willing to give 
him an evening of your time. Great teachers 
have always understood this, and were lavish of 
their time for the benefit of individual pupils. 
The Master seemed to be more willing to give 
his time to individuals than to large companies. 
The personal touch is stronger, which is the 
greatest force in the world for the winning of 
men. 

3. The Master taught his class something 
worth while, and that always increased its 
numbers. His first disciples were so vitally inter- 
ested that they started out to tell others about 
what they were getting. James and John and 
Andrew and Philip became recruiting officers at 
once. People who heard him once were eager 
to hear him again. He always had something to 
say that was worth listening to. He put his best 
into every occasion, so the people flocked to him 
in multitudes and heard him gladly. 

People, young and old, will come to Sunday 
school when they have a teacher of this mold. 
A dry, uninteresting teacher will dissipate any 
class that can be gathered for him. When you 
have gotten a start in the way of a class, if no 
more than one or two, put your best into teach- 
[191 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

ing it. You will always get more when you do 
well by those you have: "Unto every one that 
hath shall be given." The teacher who never has 
anything new to say to his class soon becomes a 
bore. Keep taking fresh draughts from the 
fountain all the time, then you will have some- 
thing fresh to give those who come to be taught. 

4. Wayside invitations. One day when Mat- 
thew was collecting taxes the Master walked by 
and abruptly said, "Follow me," and he did it. 
It was a bold thing to do. Tax collectors were 
not in good repute then; religion had little to do 
with their business, and the presumption was all 
against his having anything to do with religion. 
But the Master made the venture, and it won. 

We need to keep in mind the importance of 
incidental acquaintances and chance meetings 
as a means of gathering pupils to us. A little 
card bearing an invitation handed to a man who 
does not attend church will often do good. Let 
people know you are at work for the Master, 
and use all the avenues that are open to you to 
bring them to a knowledge of the truth. Do not 
be afraid to ask people to come to Sunday school. 
Take advantage of your business and social ac- 
quaintances to this end, and hail the stranger as 
you meet him. Many a worldly Matthew will 
follow with a glad heart. 



20 



IV 

THE MASTER'S GRASP OF HIS SUBJECT 

One of the things said about our Lord was that 
he taught as one having authority. The scribes 
quoted somebody else as their authority, and 
rarely said anything on their own account. If 
they could cite the saying of a distinguished rabbi, 
especially one who had been dead a long time, 
they regarded the matter as settled. The Master 
took a different course. With him it was not, 
"Rabbi So-and-So says this is true," but, "Verily 
I say unto you." He had his authority within 
him, and this gave his words the peculiar ring 
that made men listen. 

Let us see if we can discover the secret of his 
authority that we may learn it after him. 

1. The first thing that strikes us in such a 
search is his knowledge of his subject. He knew 
what he was talking about. He was an expert 
on the subject he handled. He did not spread 
himself over the universe and pronounce an 
opinion on everything under the sun. He was 
a teacher of religion, and he stuck to his subject 
strictly and conscientiously. Both his disciples 
[211 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

and his enemies tried to divert him into other 
lines, but he would not allow it. Once he was 
asked by a friend and believer to settle a dispute 
about an inheritance, but he replied, "who made 
me a judge or a divider over you?" On another 
occasion he was asked for an opinion about pay- 
ing tribute to Caesar, a burning question at that 
time and one that would have got him into a 
political wrangle at once, but he answered only 
in so far as the matter involved God and right. 
He stayed by his subject, and that is one reason 
he knew it so well. He had the Scriptures at his 
tongue's end, and could also tell you what the 
great teachers of his own and other days said about 
them. Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms 
were as familiar to him as his own thoughts, and 
he could quote what had been "said of old time" 
as well as any scribe. He could also do what the 
scribe could not do: show where the "old time" 
was right and where wrong. 

The Master did not attain this grasp of his sub- 
ject without effort. His divinity does not imply 
that he got his knowledge without trying. Luke 
is careful to tell us that he "grew, and waxed 
strong," becoming "filled with wisdom." He got 
his mastery of his subject by the same processes 
that we get our mastery of it. 

The lesson to the Sunday-school teacher is 
obvious. You will never speak with authority 
until you speak with knowledge. Knowledge is 
[22] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

power, and the more nearly complete it is the 
more convincing and controlling will be your 
power. The fundamental demand on every 
teacher is that he know. Superficial knowledge 
will carry weight with nobody. You will not 
master your class until you master your Bible. 
When you get Christ's grip of your subject you 
will begin to have his grip on your hearers. 

2. Another secret of the Master's authority 
as a teacher was his experience of his subject. 
His knowledge was of the heart as well as of the 
brain. A mere intellectual grasp of any subject 
will not make you an authority on it. You must 
believe it, for one thing, and live it and feel its 
power within you, for another. Then you will 
speak with conviction, and, therefore, with 
power. When the Master talked about the father- 
hood of God it was not as a theologian, but as a 
child of the Father. He loved God, trusted him 
and walked in daily fellowship with him, and, 
therefore, spoke from experience; and experience 
is always a more authoritative teacher than logic. 
When he taught his disciples how to pray he did 
it out of a soul steeped in prayer. Out on the 
desert and alone he had wrestled before the throne 
and prevailed. When he spoke about the value 
of self-denial, of losing life in order to find life, 
of bearing the cross that we may win the crown, 
he did it out of a life devoted to sacrifice and with 
the shadow of Calvary looming over him every 
[23] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

day. He could speak with authority about the 
blessedness of serving others rather than pamper- 
ing self because he was doing that very thing all 
the time. He could say so as to convince, "It is 
more blessed to give than to receive," because he 
was continually giving and rarely receiving. It 
is surprising, when we come to think of it, how 
much of our Lord's teaching grew directly out 
of his experience. 

Such a teacher will always carry weight. 
Sunday-school pupils are quick to discover 
whether a teacher is talking theory to them or 
something he has tried out and made his own. 
You will not get the Master's controlling and com- 
pelling grasp of his subject until you can speak 
on it from the heart as well as the head. The 
religion you get out of books may enable you to 
talk learnedly, but it will not enable you to talk 
persuasively. The great thing about the Bible is 
that its teaching can be tried, put to the test of 
experience and demonstrated in life. This makes 
it an easy book to teach. It is not like chemistry, 
for example; to teach this subject effectively 
requires a specially constructed laboratory and a 
supply of costly materials. Every man of us 
carries the laboratory of the gospel around with 
him. His life gives him the material for demon- 
stration. There are some things that cannot be 
verified by experience; the facts of astronomy, 
for example. We learn them by purely intellec- 
[24] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

tual processes. But the biggest realities of the 
universe, the facts of God and the soul, can be 
tested by experience; and we really never know 
them until we have tried them out there. You 
cannot teach your class with any force that the 
truth, when they come to know it, will make 
them free, unless it has made you free. You 
cannot say anything worth listening to about 
prayer unless you pray, and, like the Master, 
keep on praying until you prevail. 

3. The Master thought his subject out and 
arranged it so as to make it clear to others. He 
had grasp enough of it to make it simple to the 
most ignorant man in his class. This is the most 
conclusive test of how well we know a thing. 
The great facts of God and eternity were so clear 
in our Lord's mind that he could illustrate them 
by the simplest and commonest things in the life 
of his day. He could never have created his 
matchless parables had he not first thought out 
the truth they illustrated until it was perfectly 
clear in his own mind. It takes effort, again, to 
do this; but it is effort that will always pay the 
Sunday-school teacher. Study your lesson clear 
through, turn its truth over in your mind until 
you can use the commonest things in the life of 
your class to illustrate it; be able to say with 
the Master, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto " 
this or that your class is daily familiar with. 
Then the truth will go home because it is under- 
[251 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

stood. If you would learn to teach from the 
Master Teacher, you will never be haphazard 
or slovenly in your preparation. You will have 
things so thought out and arranged before you 
go to class that they will be as clear to you as 
the light of day. Then, like the Master also, if 
you are put in a place where you must speak on 
the spur of the moment, you will have both a 
fund and a heart to speak from. 



26 



THE MASTER'S METHOD OF TEACHING 

Sunday-school teachers as a rule neglect the 
importance of method. They generally think 
they are prepared for their classes when they 
have familiarized themselves with the subject 
matter of their lesson. But that is only the first 
step. How are you going to get what you have 
gathered into the minds and hearts of your class? 
It requires more study and preparation to master 
this than it does to gather your material. 

The Master must have had an effective method, 
for a faulty method could not have produced the 
results his teaching did. He started with twelve 
in his class. Every one of them, with the excep- 
tion of Judas, became a great teacher himself, 
and spoke to his generation with a moral authority 
rarely known among men. Judged by results, it 
is not too much to say that Jesus turned out of 
his school the greatest generation of teachers the 
world ever has known. Socrates, Plato and 
Aristotle, the great teachers of the most intel- 
lectual race yet produced, never had the hearing 
the apostles gained, or influenced so varied a 
[27] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

circle of human life. They were not what would 
be called good material when they began, but 
they had good training. They learned in the 
school of Christ, where we may learn also. Note 
some points in the Master's method of handling 
his theme and his class. 

1. Lucid statement. Our Lord often combined 
what we call preaching and teaching; that is, he 
taught by making a formal statement of what 
he wanted to impart in clear, simple and direct 
language. Sometimes he confined himself to this, 
and gave a plain, straightforward talk on his 
subject, illustrating it by scenes and experiences 
with which his hearers were daily familiar. As a 
rule, he began with a particular precept or act 
and passed from that to the general principle 
involved. He dealt very little with the abstract, 
but made continuous use of the concrete; a good 
method for all teachers. There are occasions, 
particularly with adult classes, when it will be 
well for you to take up a point, especially when it 
deals with a fundamental of Christianity, and go 
into it thoroughly and make a connected and 
somewhat exhaustive statement of it, just as the 
Master did in the Sermon on the Mount and in 
his discussions in the upper chamber the evening 
before he suffered. But don't preach; say what 
you have to say in a conversational way, which 
lends itself to clearness better than formal dis- 
course. Get on the level of your class, and never 
[281 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

talk down to them when you go into extended 
explanations. The habit of the Master in avoid- 
ing the abstract and speculative, and pressing 
the subject home with the concrete and tangible 
is a good one to adopt. 

2. Thought-compelling questions. Teaching 
is not telling, because a great deal of our telling 
elicits no mental response. So our Lord had a 
habit of throwing in a question now and then that 
broke up the serenity of his class and made them 
sit up and think. Sometimes his questions 
shocked them by their unconventional and untra- 
ditional character. On occasion he would set 
the minds of the staid members of his class in a 
veritable ferment of astonishment and expect- 
ancy by the unusual form his line of questions 
would take. He never was stale, which is the 
bane of much of our Sunday-school teaching, 
and he never allowed any discussion he was han- 
dling to become trite and commonplace. He had 
no hesitancy about raising perplexities and 
apparently leaving things in a muddle, but 
through it all he left the conviction that there 
was no muddle in his own mind. However 
tangled the matter was in the minds of the class 
as the result of his questions, every member of 
it was certain that he could untangle it; which is 
a valuable asset to a teacher. Make your class 
think, but never lead them where you cannot see 
the way out yourself. However deep the water 
[29] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

may be to them, let them always feel that your 
head is above it and you can take care of them. 

3. The Master always allowed his class to ask 
him questions; he provoked them to do it. The 
utmost freedom of discussion prevailed in his 
classroom. He was not afraid to go into any 
question that might be raised, and he also taught 
his class that they must not be afraid of the 
answer when it came. If Peter asked a question, 
and the answer was a condemnation of his own 
attitude he did not allow his feelings to get hurt 
and quit school. An atmosphere prevailed that 
made everybody willing to take what came, 
whether it hit him or not. Willingness to look 
the truth in the face and accept it is one of the 
first qualifications of both good teaching and good 
learning. The Master often made statements 
that startled his disciples into asking questions; 
for example, his statement about its being easier 
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle 
than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 
When you can get your class interested enough 
to ask questions, they are interested enough to 
learn. 

4. The dilemma. Our Lord frequently used 
this form of argument in his teaching. It is a 
very effective weapon against an adversary. It 
puts him in a corner where he must accept one 
of two alternatives, neither of which is tenable. 
The only thing he can do is to abandon his posi- 

[30] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

tion and come out of the corner. When the 
chief priests came to him about his authority for 
doing what he did, he answered by putting them 
in a practical dilemma about the baptism of 
John. It silenced them effectively. When a 
Sunday-school teacher can turn the position of a 
skeptically inclined pupil back on himself, and 
show its untenableness, he has gained a great 
deal. Have such grip of your subject that you 
will be able to show the skeptic that he is on 
unreasonable and impossible ground. 

5. Pat illustrations. Our Lord was a master 
illuminating his subject by the simplest and com- 
monest things in the life of his class. There is 
no better way of either making your point clear 
or driving it home to the hearts of your pupils 
than a telling illustration, but it must hit the 
point. Telling a story for the sake of the story 
is always bad. Illustrations that do not illustrate 
not only waste your time, but befog the issue. 
Select them with care, and be sure that they are 
familiar. An illustration that has to be explained 
will fail to illuminate. 

6. Repetition. Our Lord often discussed a 
subject twice. The most casual reader of the 
Gospels cannot fail to see that he repeats himself. 
There is a vital principle of education in this, the 
principle of review. Any method that neglects it 
is defective. Some one has said that "repetition 
is the mother of studies." The tremendous 

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LEARNING TO TEACH 

effectiveness of the educational system of the 
older Jesuits was in this fact. They never allowed 
their students to forget what was once learned. 
One of the elements of the great success of the 
late President Harper of The University of 
Chicago, as a teacher, was his skill in reviewing. 
The first few minutes of each recitation period 
was used to sum up what had been gone over 
before. In this way the salient points of his sub- 
ject were fixed in the minds of the class so they 
could not be forgotten. You can no more review 
without preparation than you can do your first- 
hand teaching without it. Let your class do the 
reviewing. Don't make it a lecture, and don't 
attempt to cover all the ground gone over in the 
original lesson; hit the high points, especially 
the applications of the lesson to the life of the 
pupil. President Harper had another art worth 
cultivating by the Sunday-school teacher: fore- 
casting the next lesson at the conclusion of the one 
in hand. If you can tickle the palate of your 
pupil so he will go home to study next Sunday's 
lesson and be on hand to hear it discussed in 
class, you have gained a big point. 

7. Laboratory teaching. Our Lord gave his 
class something to do by way of carrying out his 
instruction. When the disciples asked to be taught 
how to pray, he gave them a form of prayer which 
they could use. After he had been preaching and 
healing for some time, he sent them on a tour to 
[32] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

do the same things. When they returned they 
made report of their trial. It is stated also that 
Jesus did not baptize, but left that part of his 
ministry to his disciples. In other words, he con- 
ducted a sort of workshop for the members of 
his class in which they were trained for future 
service. Get your class to work. When you have 
had a lesson on prayer, encourage them to pray 
and pray with them. So as to confessing Christ, 
helping the poor, sending the gospel to every 
creature, and so forth; suggest ways by which 
they can put the truth they have studied to 
practical test. 



[33] 



VI 



HOW THE MASTER FOLLOWED UP 
HIS TEACHING 

The Master believed in the follow-up method. 
He was not done with a lesson when he had taught 
it, or with a class when he had addressed it. 
Teaching was too big a thing to be over with so 
soon. In his conception it is a life process and 
is not finished until life is perfected. So we find 
him adopting measures to reenforce what we may 
call his classroom instruction and translate it 
into faith and character. His objective, as we 
have seen, was not merely to impart truth, but 
to influence life. Note some of his follow-up 
methods : 

1. Association. He spent a good deal of time 
in the company of his disciples. So far as cir- 
cumstances permitted, he lived with them. The 
Greeks spoke of a teacher's disciples as "those 
about him." Thus the students of Socrates were 
called "those about Socrates"; they spent 
their time in his presence and fellowship, and 
drank in daily the wisdom of his speech and the 
influence of his life. The Master adopted this 
[34] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

custom and went with his disciples to their homes, 
took them to his home, if he could be said to have 
one, had them accompany him on his journeys, 
worship with him in the synagogue and rest with 
him when he went apart to some quiet spot for 
a vacation. He gave them a chance to see his 
life and get the impact of his personality when 
he was off duty. 

The biggest part of our education is uncon- 
scious; subconscious, our modern school of 
educators would call it; what we absorb when 
we do not know we are absorbing. The biggest 
part of our teaching is also of the same character. 
What we are speaks louder to the class than what 
we say. How a parent lives before his children 
has more to do with the making of their characters 
than what he teaches them. The Master gave his 
disciples the benefit of contact with his life, which 
reached and helped them in ways of which they 
were not conscious. He not only spake as never 
man spake, but he lived before their eyes as never 
man lived. 

There is a power in such contact which the 
Sunday-school teacher ought to cultivate. Many 
a man remembers what his mother was long after 
he has forgotten what she said. This is true of 
all our friends. The perfume of their character 
lingers long after the sound of their words has 
died from memory. Be with your pupils as much 
as you can. Give them the benefit of your per- 
[35] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

sonality, that is, if you have one that will influ- 
ence them in the right way. Let them see that 
you are as Christian in your work and play as 
you are in your teaching, and as loyal to Christ 
on week days in the office where you do business, 
as in the classroom on Sundays where you teach 
his gospel. Your life, if it is what it out to be, 
will win many a pupil that your words will fail 
to persuade. 

2. Reenforced teaching. The Master followed 
up what we may call his classroom instruction 
by making it a topic of conversation with his 
disciples afterwards. Frequently they came to 
him privately and asked him the meaning of a 
parable or the explanation of a prophecy. Some 
of the most valuable things he uttered were in 
these after-class conversations. In this way, a 
flood of light was thrown on that great cluster 
of parables in Matthew, chapter thirteen. And 
what is perhaps the most solemn and im- 
pressive passage in the Gospels — his discourse 
on the Mount of Olives on Tuesday evening of the 
Passion Week, about the destruction of Jerusalem 
and the end of the world — was spoken in response 
to a request from his disciples for an explanation 
of what he had said an hour before. His informal 
conversations were as religious and inspiring as 
his formal addresses. At the dinner table, on a 
cross-country tramp, in a fishing boat, wherever 
we find him, he is making the things of God and 
[36] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

life and eternity plain to men. And he did not 
find it hard to give this turn to the conversation 
in any circle of which he was a member. He 
never dragged religion into a conversation or 
introduced it unnaturally. He would have made 
himself a bore and his subject an embarrassment 
if he had. He had the art of utilizing any situa- 
tion to illuminate his mission. 

Every week the Sunday-school teacher will 
find opportunities, if he will look for them, to 
illustrate and bring home to his class the lesson 
taught the Sunday before. Why is it any more 
unnatural to talk about some feature of the 
lesson when you meet a boy of your class on 
Monday morning than it is to say something 
about the weather or Saturday's baseball game? 
If your heart is in your work, as the Master's 
was, you will find a way to do it without making 
yourself tiresome or your subject forbidding. 
Make religion so natural to yourself that you can 
talk about it naturally anywhere and to anybody. 
If you will follow up your class in this way, with 
the right spirit and tact, they will welcome your 
words as eagerly as the disciples welcomed the 
after-conversations of the Master. When you 
are not afraid to discuss Christianity anywhere 
with your boys they will not be afraid to discuss 
it anywhere with you. 

3. Comradeship in play. Our Lord had grown 
men in his class who were past the playtime of 
[37] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

life. We are not told that he played ball or ran 
races with them, but he did other things that were 
of the same nature. When he went on a vacation 
he took them with him, and when they went for 
a boat ride he was along. And they never failed 
to learn some valuable things from him on such 
occasions. The feeding of the five thousand with 
all its tremendous import was a vacation inci- 
dent. Of the same character was his walking on 
the water and his rescue of Peter from the waves. 
The point of this is that to him rest time and 
playtime were as fruitful in opportunities to teach 
as any other season. He made everything throw 
light on the truth he wanted to make plain. 
Vacation helped this along as effectively as work 
time. 

The Sunday-school teacher is making a good 
deal of this to-day, and he ought to. You have 
won a great point with your boys when you have 
shown them they can be Christlike on the ball 
field as well as in Sunday school. It is not neces- 
sary that you should open a ball game with 
prayer, or wear a sanctimonious face in order to 
do this. The most vital part of religion is rarely 
expressed. You can show your boys that when 
they are fair and clean and honorable in their 
sports they are carrying out the instruction of the 
Sunday school and doing as the Master wants 
them to do. A boy has gone a long way in 
the Christ life when he realizes that he can play 
[381 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

in the sight of God as truly as he can worship in 
his sight. Follow up your class with a view to 
putting God into the whole of their lives. 

4. Comradeship in work. The Master was 
interested in what his disciples did to make a 
living. Sometimes he went with them on fishing 
trips, and in his own way helped them in their 
work. But more than this, he gave them part 
in his work. Very early in his ministry he as- 
signed the administration of baptism to them 
entirely. John 4: 1,2. On other occasions he sent 
them on tours of preaching and commissioned 
them to do just the things he was doing himself: 
preach, heal diseases, cast out devils, and so 
forth. He made his class a sort of training school 
in which his disciples could learn to do what 
they saw him doing. He made them feel they 
were partners with him in the upbuilding of his 
kingdom. 

This is a good way to follow your class. Give 
them a share in your work. Let them try their 
hands at something positively and aggressively 
Christian. The disciples did not preach so well 
as Christ did, but he sent them out and let them 
try it. Undertake some kind of Christian ac- 
tivity in which your class can take part with 
you. 



39] 



VII 
THE MASTER'S WAYSIDE TEACHING 

1. In the Master's view there are no wayside 
incidents in life, in the sense that they are trifling 
or unimportant. Everything that happens is 
important and purposeful. The casual conversa- 
tion you have with your neighbor as you walk 
down the street with him is as big with oppor- 
tunity as when you stand before him in the 
classroom. Our Lord evidently so regarded it, 
for he never allowed a meeting of any kind to 
pass unused. He did not think of himself as a 
teacher only after the bell had rung and the 
class assembled. He thought and talked of God 
all the time and everywhere. William Carey's 
famous saying, that his business was preaching 
the gospel and that he cobbled shoes to pay 
expenses, was a reflection of the Master's atti- 
tude. By wayside teaching is meant the teaching 
our Lord did while he was off duty, or passing 
from one point of effort to another. Many of 
the most significant things that fell from his lips 
belonged to this class. We suspect that, if it 
were reckoned up, what he thus said informally 
and casually bulks larger in the Gospels than 
[40] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

what he said formally. It would be an inter- 
esting and helpful exercise to the Bible teacher 
to select and put together these wayside utter- 
ances of our Lord. Their volume and impor- 
tance surprise us when we begin to think of 
them. 

There is a lesson in this for all teachers of his 
Word. Your object as a teacher is not to fill an 
appointment, but to influence lives, and what 
you do unofficially in the wayside moments of 
contact with your pupils will go as deep, and 
probably deeper, than what you say while stand- 
ing before your class. The fact that it is not 
expected of you then may give your word sharper 
point and added weight. I know a teacher with 
a class of high-school boys who has done more 
to put Christ into their hearts while playing ball 
with them than while talking to them in Sunday 
school. He has a knack of drifting conversation 
Bible-ward, and illustrating the common hap- 
penings of a boy's life with Bible incidents and 
Bible principles that makes them a part of life. 
He does not drag it in, there is no chilling pause 
when the subject is mentioned; it is discussed as 
naturally and freely as any other topic. The 
parents of the boys say that they talk more about 
this wayside teaching than about what is said in 
class. 

2. Qualifications for wayside teaching. It is 
by no means an easy kind of teaching. A blun- 
[41] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

derer can make a mess of this more easily than of 
class teaching. The Master, of course, was quali- 
fied, and stands as our model. For one thing, he 
had superb tact, which is a prime requisite. Note 
how he handled Nicodemus, and the woman at 
the well, and Simon the Pharisee. Sunday-school 
pupils will soon enough avoid in the classroom a 
teacher who is a bore, but they will run from him 
far more quickly on the street. The Master also 
had a vital and sympathetic interest in both his 
subject and the people to whom he taught it. 
Both were in his thoughts all the time. He knew 
his Bible so well that it was safe to begin a con- 
versation on it anywhere. He was not afraid to 
be caught without his lesson help. When we 
read these wayside utterances they do not strike 
us as offhand. The occasion often came unex- 
pectedly, but what he said impresses us as thought 
out and matured. His subject filled and engrossed 
his mind so thoroughly that he could talk about 
it with intelligence and certainty any time. The 
old Roman soldier made a point of being always 
prepared. Christ was that as a teacher, and so 
ought we to be when we attempt to teach in his 
name. 

3. People sought out the Master to be taught 
when they knew he was not otherwise engaged. 
Nicodemus came to him thus one evening, doubt- 
less after a day of hard public instruction, and 
got a lesson which the world to this day has not 
[42] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

forgotten. We would rather give up our rail- 
roads and steel mills than lose the third chapter 
of John. We have it because Christ acquired 
reputation enough as a teacher to make men feel 
that it was worth while to seek him in off hours. 
Sooner or later the right kind of Sunday-school 
teacher will have this experience. After all, 
religion is the most popular subject about which 
men think, and the teacher who has something 
vital and real to say about it will be hunted out 
by the Nicodemuses who are hungry for guidance. 
It may not have been creditable to Nicodemus 
that he slipped in to see the Master after night, 
but it was certainly creditable to the Master that 
Nicodemus came. Make it easy for such wayside 
seekers after truth to find you anywhere and at 
any time. You may create a third chapter of 
John in their lives. 

4. The gift of meeting strangers. It is an 
important asset in a teacher's capital. The Master 
possessed it to a remarkable degree. He knew 
how to make it easy for a Mary Magdalene, or 
an alien like the Samaritan woman, to approach 
him. He met them more than halfway, which 
every teacher in his name ought to be able and 
willing to do. The meeting was invariably turned 
to religious account before it was through. See 
how he handled the woman at the well. Before 
she knew it he had her thinking and talking about 
God and the realities of the soul, and out of that 
[43] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

bit of wayside teaching the complexion of a city 
was changed. He won his twelve apostles be- 
cause he knew how to put the question of religion 
to a stranger so as to secure acceptance. He 
greeted Nathanael, who was not only a stranger, 
but an unbeliever, in so convincing a fashion 
that the conversation had not lasted five minutes 
until he was won. However casually he met a 
man, there was nothing casual about the way the 
meeting ended. The stranger went on his way 
with a new faith in his soul and a new song in 
his heart. Study the Master's method of ap- 
proaching and holding strangers. He was not a 
politician in our sense of the word, but he had 
the peculiar power to greet and grip men, which 
is the secret of leadership everywhere. 

5. The Master traveled a good deal with his 
disciples, and used the time en route to good 
advantage. These journeys his fellow travelers 
never forgot, and the world is grateful to this 
day that they have been recorded. I will mention 
but three instances. To begin with, the most 
important thing he ever said about himself was 
on the way to Caesarea Philippi. Matt. 16 : 13-21. 
It was a wayside conversation that drew from 
Peter the declaration that has been the Rock on 
which the Church has planted itself ever since, 
and against which the gates of hell have rebelled 
in vain. His teaching on that journey alone is a 
whole gospel. In the next place, he utilized his 
[44] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

journey to Jerusalem, toward the close of his 
ministry, to give his disciples the clearest and 
most impressive vision of the cross they had yet 
received. Matt. 20: 17jf. It was not understood 
by them, but they felt its power and carried its 
memory to the end. Then, there is that notable 
walk to Emmaus the day after the resurrection. 
Luke 24: 18Jf. It should not be overlooked that 
the great lessons unfolded were the conversation 
of a stranger with two fellow travelers. Before 
they knew who he was, their hearts burned within 
them while he talked by the way. Have you ever 
invited a member or two of your class to take a 
walk with you on an evening? If not, you have 
missed some fine opportunities to talk quietly 
about the big things of the kingdom. If one by 
one you could send your pupils home from such 
a stroll with their hearts burning, as burned the 
hearts of those two disciples after the walk to 
Emmaus, you would be doing the work of a 
lifetime. 

6. Vacation teaching. The Master took vaca- 
tions now and then as he needed them, but he 
did not drop religion or neglect opportunities to 
teach. Sometimes he took his disciples with him 
and improved the time to their spiritual upbuild- 
ing. The feeding of the five thousand, with all 
its tremendous lessons, occurred while he was on 
a sort of camping trip with his class. The thing 
for us to learn is that the Master's rest time was 
[45] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

not an idle time. He simply varied the form of 
his teaching activity, and found rest by changing 
work instead of ceasing from it. Many Sunday- 
school teachers are doing this with their boys 
to-day, and life decisions are coming from it. 



[46 



VIII 

THE MASTER'S SUCCESS AS A 
TEACHER 

1. In considering this part of our subject, it 
should be mentioned, first of all, that the Master 
never was anxious about his success. Sometimes 
he even seemed indifferent about the effect of 
his words. He was told again and again that the 
most influential sections of his hearers were dis- 
pleased with what he said, but it did not disturb 
him in the least. He neither denounced them 
for their disagreement, nor modified his views so 
as to make them more acceptable. An anxious 
teacher is likely to do one or the other. He 
went on as though he cared nothing about what 
people thought. The last thing he was con- 
cerned about was popularity. Sometimes when 
the people were hailing him the loudest he 
slipped away from them and hid himself in moun- 
tain or desert where he could be alone. 

Yet there was always an atmosphere of superb 

confidence about him, even when his enemies 

were fighting the hardest and his friends were 

leaving almost in a body. John 6: 66/f. "Fully 

[471 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

conscious that the world is against him, scoffed, 
despised, hated, alone, too, in his cause, and 
without partisans that had any public influence, 
no man has ever been able to detect in him the 
least anxiety for the final success of his doctrine." x 

To disregard the popular symptoms of suc- 
cess, however, was one of the secrets of his power. 
He was sure of God and sure of himself, and to 
such a teacher popular favor and popular dislike 
mean little. Do not set too high a value on 
either the flattering or the chilling things people 
may say about your teaching. Your real success 
is to be judged by other standards. 

2. In a former chapter it was pointed out 
that the Master as a teacher sought to do four 
things: 

(1) Impart religious knowledge. 

(2) Awaken thought about religion. 

(3) Induce decision in behalf of religion. 

(4) Train for service. 

His success is to be judged by the extent to 
which he was able to accomplish these ends. 
Let us see. 

(1) He threw a flood of new light on the Old 
Testament, and presented phases of the law the 
rabbis of his day never thought of. More than 
this, he made applications of old truth which 
were entirely new, and drove the knowledge of 
the Father home with new force and grip. He 
i The Man Christ Jesus, by Robert E. Speer. 

[48] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

imparted, also, a new view of the Messiah and 
the prophecies concerning him. He lived in an 
age of teachers, but he left behind him a knowl- 
edge of God and his Word no other generation 
had possessed. 

(2) Wherever he spoke men began to think as 
they never thought before. One of the objections 
to his teaching was that it made people think too 
much; it startled them out of the rut their minds 
had been running in for generations. This, of 
course, made it uncomfortable for other teachers 
whose word had hitherto never been questioned. 
"What think ye?" was a favorite introduction 
to his lessons. He raised a great many questions 
that had not been thought of before, and set his 
hearers to wondering about them and trying to 
find an answer. 

(3) In bringing his hearers to a decision it 
cannot be said that he was unusual so far as 
numbers are concerned. At the end of his min- 
istry there were but one hundred and twenty 
who had committed themselves to him. Paul's 
ministry in this respect was far more fruitful, 
and many a preacher all down the history of the 
Church has gathered thousands where he gathered 
tens. But success as a soul-winner is to be meas- 
ured by the character of the decisions won as 
well as by their numbers. The Master brought 
twelve men to his side who afterwards turned 
the world upside down. And the Sunday-school 

[49] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

teacher who leads one boy to Christ and inspires 
him to become an apostle of the cross is a suc- 
cess. I know a very efficient teacher of young men 
who will not permit more than seven or eight to 
enter his class. He takes a few and wins them 
for Christ all over and all through. 

(4) That the Master was successful in training 
his disciples for service is patent to every student 
of the Bible and every reader of history. Those 
humble fishermen and peasants went out from his 
class and did what kings could not do. 

Here is the standard which every teacher ought 
to set for himself. Are your pupils growing in 
the knowledge of God? are they thinking more 
about God? are they deciding for God? and are 
they preparing for the service of God? 

3. The Master clothed his truth with the right 
atmosphere. This is an important element in 
a teacher's success. His instruction never stopped 
with the intellect; it went to the conscience. 
His hearers left him with the conviction that 
what he taught was vital. They might oppose it, 
but they could not ignore it. He is a great teacher 
who can put the truth before his pupils as a thing 
that must be obeyed; clothe it with such an 
atmosphere of importance that it becomes insist- 
ent and will not be neglected. You are not 
done with a lesson when you have made it under- 
stood; Christ made it compelling. It clamored 
after he spoke it, and stuck to the soul with a 
F501 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

persistence that could not be shaken off. Study 
to make every lesson vital. 

4. The hostility a teacher excites is sometimes 
an indication of success. One of the strongest 
elements of the Master's power was the fact 
that the enemies of righteousness could not 
ignore him. There was no surer indication that 
he was making headway than the fact that the 
Pharisees had to take measures to counteract 
what he taught. If you have managed to stir 
up the nests of evil in your town to deride you 
and to make trouble for you, do not count your- 
self a failure for that. Better have this than your 
pupils dropping out and nobody taking interest. 

5. The Master's teaching grew in clearness 
and force as the years went on. He said many 
things, for example, about his death and resur- 
rection which were not understood when they 
were uttered. But they were not forgotten and 
the time came when they dawned on the souls of 
the disciples with tremendous power. If you are 
not able to make a thing clear at the time, put 
it before your pupils in such a way that it will 
come home to them later and have its effect on 
their lives. 



51] 



IX 



THE MASTER'S DISCOURAGEMENTS 
AS A TEACHER 

The Master was not a discourageable man. 
He had plenty of cause for discouragement; 
most men would have lost heart under a fraction 
of what he had to face. But he was not built 
that way. He was not a Mark Tapley, who 
kept in good heart because he refused to think 
about the adverse side of things or to take life 
seriously. He was the most serious man of his 
age, and that side of life appealed to him every 
hour he lived it. His superiority to discourage- 
ment did not come from superficial thinking, but 
from his habit of thinking things through. He 
rose above the discouragements of his life because 
he could see past them into the largeness of God's 
purpose. In thinking, therefore, of the dis- 
couragements of the Master, let us bear in mind 
his attitude toward them. The important thing 
is, not whether we shall be free from adverse 
conditions in our teaching, but the spirit in which 
we shall meet them. Jesus never abated con- 
[521 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

fidence nor lost heart no matter what he had to 
face. 

Let us now consider some of the discourage- 
ments that beset him, and then note how he 
met them. 

1. Dull minds. Our Lord, as we have seen 
before, was a master at making things plain. 
Still he was not always able to make himself 
understood to the men who listened to him. 
The brightest members of his class often missed 
his point. And the failure was not in the less 
important features of his teaching, but in its 
cardinal and vital principles. His death, his 
resurrection, the atonement, the terms of dis- 
cipleship, the nature of his kingdom, the very 
fundamentals of his mission, seemed beyond the 
comprehension of his most alert and faithful 
pupils. He selected a small band with a view 
to training them to leadership, yet they could 
not understand, much less explain to others, the 
principles that were the corner stone of the faith 
they were to teach and preach. Yet they were 
reared in a Messianic atmosphere; they were 
fairly familiar with the law and the prophets 
which spoke of him, and he had reason to expect 
that they would understand. But for the three 
years he taught them they were a continual dis- 
appointment to him. Yet they were not dullards 
above the common run of men. They were types 
of what the religious teacher meets everywhere. 
[531 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

After months, possibly years, of hard, patient 
work you find the brightest members of your 
class have not caught the point, or have acquired 
but a surface knowledge of what you have been 
trying to teach. The Master did not allow this 
to discourage him. Not once did he hint at 
quitting, or intimate that it was of no use to con- 
tinue. He realized that the average human 
being is not a religious genius, and patiently 
kept on doing his best. 

2. Closed minds. The Master also addressed 
a good many people who did not try to under- 
stand. They did not care enough. They were 
willing to stay in the class as long as he handed 
out loaves and fishes for nothing, but for the 
spiritual significance of his teaching they had no 
appetite. They were glad to have him heal their 
diseases and fill their stomachs, or if he would 
play the role of a political revolutionist they 
would listen and applaud, but when he began to 
talk about the bread of life, and to insist on 
repentance and faith and prayer, they lost 
interest and turned away. 

Most teachers have felt the chill of this dis- 
couragement. They are trying to instruct minds 
that are practically closed to the subject of 
religion, not because they are unbelievers or 
cherish a hostile thought toward the school or 
their teacher, but because they are not inter- 
ested. When questions bearing on reform or 
[ 54 1 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

politics or socialism or literature are discussed 
the class is large and attentive, but when the 
teacher turns to the things he is set to teach 
attention is lost and the atmosphere grows stale. 
It is worth while to remember that the Master 
went through it all. 

3. Successful opposition. Opposition of any 
kind is discouraging enough, but when it becomes 
triumphant a spirit of rare grace and courage is 
required to stand up against it. In almost every 
audience the Master addressed, outside the inner 
circle of the Twelve, there were people who were 
determined to misrepresent and pervert. The 
most gracious and benevolent things he did were 
watched with a view to catching something that 
could be turned against him. When he healed on 
the Sabbath, the good done was slurred over, 
and a furor raised about his being a lawbreaker. 
When he performed miracles, and all of them 
miracles of blessing, he was charged with being 
in league with the Devil. When he talked about 
the kingdom of heaven and its King, he was 
accused of speaking against Caesar. This is hard 
to bear. When the people you are trying to help 
twist your words out of their meaning and 
attribute the best things you do to evil motives, 
you feel like letting them alone. The game does 
not seem worth the candle. The Master knew the 
sting of this, and remained sweet-spirited and 
undismayed in spite of it. He not only had to 
[55] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

meet it, but to endure the depression of seeing it 
succeed. It was very apparent during the last 
year of his ministry. As we read the Gospels 
we can see his opponents and traducers slowly, 
but surely, getting the upper hand. Every day 
the shadow of the cross grew darker about him. 
Nobody saw it more clearly than he. But he 
didn't quit; he went straight on in the course 
he had set before himself. 

It is seldom a Sunday-school teacher to-day 
has to face this experience, but where he does 
it ought to stimulate him to new confidence and 
courage to see what the Master endured, and 
the spirit in which he did it. 

4. Adverse conditions. The spiritual atmos- 
sphere in which Jesus had to live and teach was 
depressing. The people were ignorant and volatile, 
the rulers bigoted, and vital religion moribund. 
Formalism had its withering grip on every- 
thing. The nation was discouraged, the promises 
were thought to have failed, and a cynical and 
skeptical pessimism possessed the times. If the 
gods of Rome were dead, the God of Israel had 
become a formality in the mind of the ruling 
classes. The Sadducees were dominant, and they 
were to Israel what the patricians and philosophers 
were to Rome, rationalistic, sneering and of the 
earth earthy. The Master generally passed this 
upper class by, and gave his attention to the 
lower strata, for ignorance is always more hope- 
F 56 1 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

ful than indifference, especially when it is cynical 
and skeptical. 

To meet such a situation, and apparently make 
no headway against it, is discouraging business. 
The Sunday-school teacher is liable to run against 
something like it any time. Churches and com- 
munities now and then get into a kind of mental 
rut in which they are ready to throw cold water 
on anything outside the settled routine. When a 
plan to better things is proposed it is met with, 
" Oh, that will do in some places, but no use to 
try it here; our people won't take to it," and so 
forth. Bear in mind that the Master met this, 
raised to the ultimate power of discouragement. 

5. Waning interest. A good many people 
started to follow the Master, but after a while 
lost zest and dropped out. Even he could not 
hold them. After three years of the best teach- 
ing the world has ever heard, during which he 
spoke to thousands of people, one hundred and 
twenty were left, and most of them had to be 
bolstered up by his post-resurrection ministry. 

This is one of the stock discouragements of the 
religious teacher. Many start, but few remain. 
Boys attend until they are in their mid-teens, and 
then seventy per cent of them fall out. It is 
easier to get a class than it is to hold it, and 
when its ranks begin to thin, the spirit of the 
teacher sags, and he is apt to write himself a 
failure. The Master knows how you feel. 
[57] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

How the Master Handled His 
Discouragements 

1. He was sure of himself. He recognized 
that the key to the situation was in him and 
not in the obstacles that opposed him. Dis- 
couragement is a condition of soul, and not of 
the outside world. Circumstances are discour- 
aging only when a discourageable soul handles 
them. The Master did not have such a soul, 
consequently he was not discouraged. Keeping 
in good heart is not a question of whether 
circumstances are for us or against us, but a ques- 
tion of what we are within. The Master had 
meat to eat that the world knew not, therefore, 
the world could neither elate nor depress him. 
The best antidote to discouragement is a healthy, 
vigorous soul, as the best protection against 
disease is a healthy, vigorous body. Keep your 
spirituality up to par. The Master had no 
quarrel with events, however untoward, because 
he had a sound soul. When a man has that 
reverses do not discourage him. 

2. He took the wider view, which is the view 
of faith. The higher up you are the farther you 
can see. The Master looked at life from the alti- 
tude of God. When he met discouragement it 
did not affect him because he looked down on it 
from the throne where he could see the other 
side of it. So he could pray for those who stood 

[58] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

in his way all through his life and nailed him to 
the cross at last, because he took the wider view 
of that awful hour. He saw the Godward side of 
things, and that side is never discouraging. He 
was working with God. "My Father worketh 
even until now, and I work. No matter what 
happened at the time things had to come out 
right in the end. 

3. He worked on. He never regarded his 
hands as tied. When he was blocked in one 
direction he patiently and serenely turned in 
another. When he was blocked in all directions 
and nothing was left to him but to die, he did it 
as sweetly and confidently as he fed the multitude 
by the sea. He had something to do, and he 
did it up to the last moment. Such a man is a 
good deal more likely to discourage the world 
than the world is to discourage him. 

4. Of course he prayed. In every great 
crisis of his life we find him alone with the Father 
at the first opportunity. After one of the severest 
and most depressing days of ministry in Caper- 
naum, when he was misrepresented and badgered 
and obstructed from daylight to dark, instead of 
going to bed he slipped out into the mountain 
in the evening and spent the night in prayer. 
The next morning there was no trace of dis- 
couragement in his face or in his heart. 



59 



THE MASTER'S ENTHUSIASM AS A 
TEACHER 

Enthusiasm is a synonym for inspiration. 
The word literally means "God within," pos- 
sessed by God. From this its meaning has 
broadened to include passionate devotion to any 
cause. The origin of the word is thus distinctively 
religious. The original enthusiast was a man with 
a passion for God; God possessed him, and was 
the zest and zeal of his life. 

1. This is the kind of man the Master was 
when he was here. There was not an icy drop 
of blood in his veins. He never did anything 
indifferently, but what was worth doing, in his 
mind, was worth doing with all his might. Of 
course, such a temperament is bound to offend. 
Decorous people thought he pushed things too 
far, and took an unbalanced view of life. His 
family went so far as to explain that he was out 
of his head, and must not be taken seriously. 
They did not object to his doing the will of the 
Father; they were proud of it. It was not his 
work, but the spirit in which he did it that 
offended his critics and made his friends feel that 
[601 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

they must apologize. They wanted him to be 
moderate and self-restrained, and he was forget- 
ting himself and working with an abandon they 
thought no sane man would be guilty of. It fell 
to his lot to suffer the misunderstanding and op- 
position that is the portion of all men who are 
on fire. Festus thought Paul was mad because 
the apostle in his enthusiasm for his religion for- 
got his chains, his fight for freedom and the royal 
presence in which he was standing. Pope Leo X 
said that Martin Luther had a "fine genius,' ' by 
which he meant that the reformer was crazy be- 
cause he was forgetting himself, his chances of 
preferment, and everything a selfish man would 
count dear, and making war to the death on the 
abuses of his day. The Wesleys and Whitfield 
were called all sorts of hard names for the extremes 
to which they pushed their zeal for the salvation 
of England's poor. 

So if your heart is aflame with interest in your 
work and for the spiritual life of your school and^ 
church, don't be discouraged when respectable 
wiseacres caution you to go slow and not tread 
too hard on the zeal-destroying proprieties of life. 
"It is all right to be interested in the boys of 
your class, but don't press the claims of religion 
until it becomes embarrassing." You are in good 
company when thus beset. It is the same wet 
blanket that was thrown on the enthusiasm of 
the Master, and on all the great teachers of his 
[61] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

kingdom ever since. But neither he nor they 
were damped by it. Enthusiasm of the right kind 
refuses to grow cold because it is in a chilly at- 
mosphere. The temperature of a healthy body 
keeps up to par in the icy blasts of winter as well 
as in the genial warmth of summer. So will the 
temperature of our souls if they are of the right 
kind. 

2. The Master's enthusiasm was one of the 
elements of his power as a teacher. Everybody 
recognized that he was in deadly earnest, and 
while the world may dislike and oppose such a 
man, it always respects him and listens to him. 
A man whose nature is not on fire with his mis- 
sion would never have withstood the seductive 
appeals of the tempter Jesus did when he was 
led into the wilderness. Matthew, Mark and Luke 
all relate that when he came out of that trial he 
went into Galilee filled with the Spirit, preaching 
and teaching, with marvelous power. His severe 
temptation not only failed to abate his enthusi- 
asm, but increased it. Sometimes he kept his 
classes far into the night because he could not 
stop and they could not leave. Witness how they 
hung on his words in the upper chamber, and 
followed him out to Gethsemane the night before 
he suffered, and how he kept telling them of the 
large things of the kingdom until the very last. 
When people came to him for loaves and fishes 
and to be healed of their diseases, he turned their 
[621 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

presence into an opportunity to teach. His 
chief pity for men was that they were without 
teachers and teaching. It was this that stirred 
his compassion for the multitude that disturbed 
his rest beyond Galilee, and he fed them because 
he had kept them so late with his teaching that 
they could not return to their homes for food. 
He had compassion on them as sheep having 
no shepherd, and "taught them many things." 
Only a man consumed with passion for his cause 
could or would do that. The Master's cause was 
men, and he was always enthusiastic in its behalf. 
3. The Master's enthusiasm was contagious. 
Men around him caught his fire and spread the 
flame of his zeal wherever they went. Philip 
sought Nathanael with a new thrill in his heart. 
Nathanael was critical and skeptical, but the 
enthusiasm for his friend carried him away, and 
he felt he must go and see. When he came and 
saw he waxed more enthusiastic than Philip 
and burst out with a confession far beyond any- 
thing Philip had said to him, "Rabbi, thou art 
the Son of God; thou art King of Israel." 
Nicodemus, scholar and aristocrat, caught some- 
thing in the air that made him feel the Master 
and his work must be looked into. An enthu- 
siasm had been imparted to the multitude that 
invaded even the formal and stately precincts of 
the Sanhedrin. So throughout his ministry 
those who touched him got a new vision and went 
[631 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

out with a new zest for religion and a new zeal 
for service. In a large sense Pentecost was a 
reflection of the fire that burned in the heart of 
the Master. Those stolid, indifferent, inert 
disciples became a consuming fire after they had 
been with him, and swept the world with an irre- 
sistible passion for God. All the weight and might 
of Rome could not stand against them. 

Every effective teacher is endowed with some 
of this contagion. His spirit spreads like a prairie 
fire, and his pupils go out to be what he is and do 
what he does. If there is a man in the community 
who ought to be a live wire, it is the Sunday- 
school teacher. Young people are very quick 
to catch enthusiasm when it is genuine. But they 
are just as quick to respond to the lack of it. A 
half-awake teacher will put his class to sleep 
before he knows it. Let the impression get out 
that teaching is a dreary performance, something 
you are doing for conscience' sake and that alone, 
and you are done for. The class will reflect the 
lusterless spirit they see in you. On the other 
hand, let them understand that you mean what 
you are doing, that your heart is in it, and you 
are working hard to make it go, and they will 
be behind you to push and help. Bible classes 
get talked about very quickly in a community 
when they have a teacher who can put life into 
his work. When he is really in earnest, both his 
class and the world outside will take him seri- 
[641 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

ously. Put so much spirit and fire into your work 
that the Philips who stray in will become enthu- 
siastic in hunting up the Nathanaels outside and 
getting them in. 

4. The Master's enthusiasm was not affected 
by difficulties. He had more than his share of 
hard knocks, as we have seen in a preceding 
chapter, but his enthusiasm had a more solid 
basis than visible success, and the lack of such 
success did not depress him. It had a deeper 
spring than human favor or flattery; it was foun- 
tained in God, and therefore remained steady no 
matter what storms raged about it. The test of 
a Christlike spirit is not the zeal we show when 
people praise us and things go our way; it is the 
fire we put into our work when it is hard and 
discouraging. Anybody can be enthusiastic over 
a mounting cause, but only a man of mettle keeps 
his enthusiasm at white heat when conditions 
are below zero. The Master did this. Some of 
the most enthusiastic and hopeful and confident 
things he said were when his enemies were closing 
around him and making escape impossible. 
Throughout the entire third year of his min- 
istry his cause was a waning cause, but he main- 
tained it as valiantly and enthusiastically as 
though it were gaining every day. Keep up your 
courage. Christ never loses in the long run, and 
he is your Captain. 

[65] 



XI 



THE MASTER'S PERSONALITY IN 
TEACHING 

Personality is the greatest world force in 
history. No physical force has touched and 
molded mankind as has that human and also 
divine thing we call personality. Behind every 
great movement in the career of mankind on 
this earth has been some man who could attract 
others to him and inspire them with his ideals 
and fire them with his enthusiasm. Principles 
are important, vitally so, but apart from persons 
they are of none effect. One after another the 
great principles of truth and righteousness which 
bless the world to-day have waited dormant 
until a personality should arise to take them up 
and clothe them with life. Popular government 
was an abstraction until the Cromwells and 
Washingtons of the world, great-hearted humans, 
put the might of their personality behind it. 
Then it began to live and conquer. Evil lives 
mainly by the same force. The most dangerous 
rascal in the world is the winsome rascal, the 
more winsome the more dangerous. Charles 
1661 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

Lamb on one occasion refused to be introduced 
to a certain man whose principles were such that 
Lamb felt it his duty to hate him, and knew he 
could not do it after he once came in touch with 
the charm of his personality. None of us want 
our daughters to come under the spell of an 
engaging rake. On the other hand, every now 
and then we hear it said of a man, "he has fine 
ideals and lives a noble life, but what a pity it 
is that he is so unattractive!" There is a per- 
verseness about the common run of us that makes 
us very ready to overlook a man's principles if 
his manners are right. There is something here 
that all teachers of religion should study. If 
there is a cause in the world that ought to have 
the advantage of charming and winsome person- 
ality it is the cause of Jesus Christ. It is a great 
deal easier to go to Sunday school when you 
like your teacher, and for this reason the teacher 
ought to strive to make himself easy to like. 

1. The Master's personality was a large ele- 
ment of power in his teachings. John tells us that 
he was full of "grace and truth." He was a great 
human and attracted other humans to him. 
There was something about him that even his 
enemies had to recognize and reckon with. They 
regarded him as peculiarly dangerous because 
they saw that he had a peculiar power to attract 
men. A stale man could not have won their 
notice. More than once he abruptly appealed to 
[67] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

men to do what was generally counted unreason- 
able, and they did it without question. There 
was something about him that compelled com- 
pliance. Matthew, a hard man, whose occupa- 
tion made it necessary daily to refuse all sorts of 
demands and appeals, was sitting in his office 
one morning ready to face the usual experience 
of a revenue officer, when the Master passed 
by and said, "Follow me." He did not have the 
reputation then of teacher and healer he enjoyed 
a year later. It was the appeal of a stranger to 
a hard man of the world to do an unusual and 
whimsical thing. Yet he did it, and did it with- 
out question. He had an air about him that 
compelled confidence. The greatest thing the 
disciples got from his teaching was not a doctrine, 
but an influence. To the last hour of their lives 
the big thing in their vision was that they had 
been with him. This, more than any specific 
truth they learned, held them up and kept them 
true and made them confident. The most trite 
word he uttered lived and sang in their memory 
like a benediction. Nothing was common- 
place after he touched it. He himself was bigger 
then anything he said. 

2. Every effective teacher must have some- 
thing of the same grace. His personality is the 
thing that gives power and point to his words. 
The great teachers of the ages have invariably 
been men who were worth knowing personally. 
[68] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

They were more than thinkers and more than 
speakers; they were big-hearted, attractive men 
whom it was a delight to know. We are told that 
the thing that gave Arnold of Rugby his tre- 
mendous hold on the young men who crowded 
his halls was not his excellence as a teacher so 
much as his rare personality, a something in him 
behind what he taught that captured the heart 
and influenced the life. When Mr. Garfield 
said that Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and 
a boy on another was a university, he did not mean 
that this was so because of what the boy would 
learn, but because of what he would absorb by 
contact with that great personality. It was an 
education to a boy to sit on the same log with 
Mark Hopkins no matter what they talked about. 
The same thing accounts for the marvelous hold 
Calvin had on the people who flocked to him in 
Geneva. They gathered to him from every land 
in which Protestantism had made a start, and 
he fascinated them with a spell that sent them 
over Europe and into America ready to do and 
suffer all things for the cause he represented. It 
was not his doctrines; for they were not new, 
for one thing, and they are not calculated to be 
popular for another. It was his powerful per- 
sonality more than any other factor. He was a 
leader in every circle he ever entered, intellec- 
tual, social, political or religious. There was a 
charm about him that attracted people to his 
[69] 



LEARNING TO TEACH 

side and held them. After his death the royalists 
in England for political reasons caricatured him 
as a kind of intellectual and logical ogre without 
human sympathy or mercy. They did the same 
thing with Cromwell until Carlyle discovered 
him to the nineteenth century. But the study of 
Calvin incident to the recent celebration of the 
four hundredth anniversary of his birth is doing 
for him just what Carlyle did for Cromwell, 
showing us the man in his real light; a man of 
big human interest and charming personality. 
He never could have influenced the world as he 
did by the naked power of his utterances, mighty 
as they were. It was the man behind the teach- 
ing that made it tell. So with Luther and Knox 
and Wesley, and all the great teachers who have 
made the kingdom of Christ stronger in the 
world, the teacher must be something as well as 
teach something if he is to win. 

3. The cultivation of personality. We are 
apt to think that personality is an inheritance 
rather than an acquirement. It is true that 
great personalities, like the genius and the poet 
are born not made, but it is also true that every 
one of us can strengthen and improve the per- 
sonality he is born with. When we analyze the 
qualities that entered into the Master's person- 
ality we see that in the main they can be acquired, 
and his disciples do acquire them. This is what 
it means to grow in grace and to become Christ- 
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FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

like. Note some of the things that made the 
Master strong and attractive: 

(1) Character. This is fundamental. After 
all, nothing adorns like character. The most 
winsome thing in the world is simple goodness. 
Our Lord had this. He carried conviction be- 
cause the people felt they could trust his char- 
acter. He was genuine. The world has profound 
respect for such. The Sunday-school teacher 
ought to have and must have character. He 
cannot assume it; he must be what he appears to 
be. We are not born with character, it is made. 
The first step in acquiring the personality of the 
Master is to go into his school and live to become 
like him. 

(2) Interest in others. A great personality is 
always unselfish. The Master loved people and 
wanted to be of use to them. It was not as a 
matter of duty he trudged over the hills of Galilee 
to teach and heal, nor was it obligation that 
brought him to Gethsemane and the cross. He 
did it because he had a heart for human kind and 
yearned to help. The poorest and meanest could 
go to him sure of a sympathetic hearing. You 
can learn this. One of the surest things in the 
world is that you will learn to feel toward people 
as Christ felt toward them, if you will follow him. 
Let it be known that you are really interested 
in your fellows, that you care, and you will draw 
them to you. 

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LEARNING TO TEACH 

(3) Sureness. The Master had that air about 
him. He was sure of himself. All great person- 
alities are. When he looked down into the deep- 
est chamber of his heart there was no suspicion 
of a false motive or an improper purpose. But 
he was not only sure of the honesty of his heart, 
he was also sure of his convictions. He was con- 
fident that he was right. He believed what he 
taught. He was not seeking applause, or a selfish 
gain, but doing the thing he thought was of God. 
This can be and ought to be ours. There are a 
good many things we cannot be sure of, but 
there is no need for doubt about what is within, 
our motives and purposes. We can be sure of our 
gospel. We have vastly more reason to pin our 
faith to it than had the men of the Master's day. 
All great personalities have this quality of sure- 
ness; confidence in themselves and their cause. 
It can be cultivated. 

Many other elements that entered into the 
personality of the Master might be mentioned, 
but these will suffice to make clear the point in 
hand; personality in all that makes it attractive 
and powerful can be acquired. Every day will 
make us more likeable and charming if we 
honestly are learning from the Master. 



72] 



XII 

THE MASTER AS A MAKER OF 
TEACHERS 

The Master turned out the greatest genera- 
tion of teachers the world has ever known. The 
world had had great teachers before them, but 
they were natural teachers, born to it like poets. 
But the Master took poor material, or average 
material at best, and made epoch-making teachers 
of them. It required no great skill on the part 
of Socrates to make a teacher of Plato, for he 
was born with the genius for teaching. But to 
make a teacher of Peter and Thomas and James 
and their like was an achievement unknown 
before and unrepeated since. Let us note some 
points in his method. 

1. He made teaching a prominent function of 
discipleship. It enters into the genius of his 
kingdom. The gospel has no other appeal than 
to the intelligence of men. It was not set forth 
on a military basis; no army went before the 
apostles. Much less does it resort to magic or 
mystery for support. Its appeal is to enlightened 
reason. Its first step, therefore, on entering a 
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LEARNING TO TEACH 

soul or a world is instruction. Every one of the 
original disciples was called to teach, and when 
they were sent forth this was the chief duty they 
were to perform. They were saved to teach as 
much as they were saved to escape condemnation. 

This is a large factor in the making of a teacher. 
We should never lose sight of the fact that teach- 
ing is as much a part of our Christian life as 
prayer or faith or consecration. It is one of the 
things we are called to do. 

When Christianity became highly organized 
this function was delegated to a select class — 
ministers and officers, chosen because they were 
especially apt. But Christianity lost by it. 
When every believer was also a teacher there 
was a swing and an impetus to the Christian 
movement that made it irresistible. 

Certain false forms of Christianity in our day 
have reverted to this early principle with tre- 
mendous effect. The growth of Mormonism, 
for example, is due more than anything else to 
the fact that every Mormon is ipso facto a teacher, 
and must hold himself in readiness to leave home 
and family and business and go to the ends of 
the earth to teach his religion and win converts 
to it. They are not learned men, even in the crude 
religion they assume to teach; their general intel- 
ligence is far below that of the average American. 
But from childhood they have been saturated 
with the idea that they must teach; it is part of 
[74] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

their ambition, and their religious life cannot be 
complete without it. 

Here is where to begin the process of teacher- 
making. Hold it before our boys and girls as 
part of their discipleship, a service every believer 
in the Lord must qualify himself to perform. 
We repeat that not one of the Twelve was a 
born teacher; they were simply average men of 
their day, no brighter and no duller than the 
common run of their generation. Yet the Master 
called them to be teachers, and did it before he 
ordained them to be apostles. Keep this before 
your class, that they are called to teach as much 
as they are called to repent and believe. 

2. The Master made teaching attractive by 
doing it well himself. As we read the Gospels 
we are impressed with the ease with which he 
did his work. It was not an effort for him to 
teach. He was so much the Master that it all 
seemed a sort of second nature to him. His life 
was so wrapped up in his subject that he taught 
by simply living. You cannot be with such a 
man without catching his enthusiasm, and you 
cannot watch him work without unconsciously 
falling into his ways. We instinctively admire a 
man who does a difficult thing easily and well. 
If we have a real interest in it we shall want to 
do it ourselves. 

So the disciples caught the contagion of his 
teaching by seeing him do it. Their first ambi- 
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LEARNING TO TEACH 

tion was to do what he did and as he did it. 
This is the most effective method of teacher- 
training that can be devised. Pedagogical 
schools and methods are good, but we must not 
overlook the historic fact that the best maker of 
teachers is the Teacher himself. Whenever a 
really great teacher arises a generation of teachers 
follows. Augustine, Anselm, Calvin, Knox, all 
the mountain teachers of the Church produced 
teaching epochs. Augustine did not set up a 
school of Christian pedagogy in Hippo, or Calvin 
in Geneva; neither of them knew anything about 
it in its technical sense. But they taught with 
such power and life that those who heard became 
teachers by induction. 

It is always so. If you want to make teachers 
of your class teach well before them; do your 
work so skillfully and heartily that they will 
catch the contagion and want to do it themselves. 
A good teacher was generally a well-taught pupil. 

3. Our Lord made teaching the chief agency 
of redemption. Christianity is distinctly a teach- 
ing religion. It propagates itself by teaching, 
and from the beginning has been the mother of 
schools. 

The Master gave this peculiar point and em- 
phasis. In proportion as the hearts of his dis- 
ciples were fired with enthusiasm for the kingdom, 
they yearned to become teachers. As they longed 
for souls they coveted the teacher's art as the 
[76] 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

most open way to win them. This is always 
true. As you excite a passion for the salvation 
of men you advance the cause of teaching. Chris- 
tianity's greatest periods have been its teaching 
periods. Get people vitally interested in the 
gospel and they will want to teach it. When 
religion is warm-hearted in a church there will 
be no dearth of volunteers to teach. Keep this 
before your class also, that as they want to save 
men and push the kingdom around the world, so 
ought they to learn to teach. Every Sunday- 
school teacher is a missionary. 

4. The Master attached large importance to 
his own teaching office. He was called Teacher 
oftener than by any other name or title, and 
evidently approved it or it would not have been 
done. He magnified the teaching aspect of his 
mission to the world. He was a teacher more 
than a healer or a worker of miracles. He did 
not teach when he was not doing something 
else, but when he was not teaching he did some- 
thing else. The feeding of the Gve thousand was 
a secondary consideration. The record is that 
when the multitude gathered "he taught them 
many things," and in doing so he kept them so 
long that it became necessary to feed them. 
All this magnified the business of teaching in 
the minds of his disciples, and made them want 
to undertake it and do it well. 

Let your pupils know that you take your 
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LEARNING TO TEACH 

work as their teacher seriously and regard it as 
an important part of your life mission. As the 
Master was not a carpenter or a healer first, and 
a teacher incidentally, so we should not make 
our calling as a Bible teacher incidental to our 
vocations — be bankers and storekeepers and 
doctors all the week except an hour on Sunday 
morning, when we turn aside to teach. Be the 
teacher all the time; while you are keeping 
store or banking or farming continue your teach- 
ing quality. The two will not interfere, and your 
class will catch the spirit. 

5. The Master gave his disciples teaching to 
do. It was not all classroom work. He estab- 
lished a sort of school of practice and set them to 
work in it. On one occasion he sent them two 
by two into places he was preparing to visit and 
told them to do what he had done and teach 
what he had taught. And when he went on high 
one of the last things he laid on them was that 
they should go all over the world teaching what 
they had received, and lay the same charge on 
their successors. 

Encourage your class to attempt some teach- 
ing themselves. Let them know that it is part 
of their Master's last command. In almost every 
community there is room for a week-night class 
or Sunday-afternoon mission where those who 
want to teach can have opportunity to try it; 
and while they are making the attempt stand by 
[781 



FROM THE MASTER TEACHER 

and help all you can. Give them practical train- 
ing in the art of teaching, as by daily association 
with them you give them practical training in 
the art of Christian living. Occasionally it may 
be wise to turn the class over to one of its members 
to teach a verse or paragraph of the lesson. 
But let it always be arranged beforehand, and 
followed by discussion to make the experiment 
helpful. 



[79 



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